v0.2.9

Adventurers,

This update adds the first thing in Echoes of Creation you can buy that is not an item: a 30-day pass built entirely out of convenience. No power you cannot earn, no stat you cannot reach, and nothing that renews itself behind your back. Alongside it, your faction gets its own chat tab — and a crash that could take the game down on fast travel is closed.

The Patron's Crest

You buy it in days, and the days stack onto whatever you have left. It does not auto-renew, it does not take a card on file, and when it lapses nothing you earned goes with it.

It saves you the walk. Reach your account storage and the blacksmith's upgrade bench from wherever you are standing — no more running back to town mid-hunt to make room or push a piece one level higher.

It saves you the grind tax.

• +50 kg carry capacity
• +25% EXP — 75% stacked with an EXP Boost Potion
• Room for 10 Scrolls of Protection instead of 5
• 30 marketplace listings instead of 20

It saves you the small daily frustrations.

• Respawn on the spot 10 times a day, instead of walking back
• One free talent respec a day — try the build instead of theorising about it
• One free faction change a month

Your build stays yours. A Crest gives you a separate Patron loadout slot that sits above your own. If the Crest lapses, that build is untouched, and it is waiting for you if you come back.

You can gift one. Buy a Crest for a friend and they get the days straight away, with a mail telling them who it came from.

Faction chat

Your pledge now has its own chat tab, sitting beside Map, Global and Guild and named after your faction. Everyone who stands with you can hear it, wherever in the world they happen to be.

It works whether or not the war is running — it is a place to talk, not a war room. Drop notices and system lines stay out of it, the same as Guild and whispers.

One thing worth knowing: the history is tied to your current pledge. Change factions and you arrive to a clean channel, and going back later does not restore what was said before you left. What your old faction says stays with your old faction.

Map and Global also show an unread dot now when you are not watching them. Only Guild did before, which is why quiet conversations in Global were easy to miss.

Fixed

• Fast travel could take the game down. Opening the world map and travelling would sometimes close the client outright on arrival. One engine-timing fault was behind it, now closed everywhere it could happen — not just on the route that reported it
• Solarch returns every 3 hours again. He had been coming back every 15 minutes
• Missing effects are back. The Warrior's dark greatsword strike, and the arrow and leaf hit effects, were failing to load and simply never appeared
• An old chat line stopped following you. The last thing you ever typed in map chat popped up over your head every time you logged in — sometimes a message weeks old
• A bound potion on your hotbar draws its icon instead of sitting there as an empty slot
• The warehouse tells you the truth. A deposit it refuses now says why, a withdrawal reports the real reason instead of failing silently, and it retries when it cannot load rather than staying empty for the rest of your session
• Everyone who damaged a Sundering boss shares its loot window. The killing blow no longer decides who gets first claim

Thank you, genuinely, to everyone who sends bug reports in from the Options menu. Three of the fixes above came directly from one, and at least one of them had been happening for weeks without anyone mentioning it.